O Sister
by This One Fool
Summary: Come to the place where paradise meets purgatory and heaven and hell are really just seconds apart. Can you tell if the space between them really exists anymore? Or were they the same all along? BennyCourier, BooneOC
1. One For My Baby

A/N: Join me in viewing my attempts to traverse the wild Mojave Wastelands with a truly wild bunch of wanderers. Here's hoping y'all enjoy it as much I do.

One For My Baby

Red Rock Canyon

Halfway between Red Rock Canyon and the beginning of Fiend territory was a large rock that sat beside the wasted roadside. This rock marked a map made by the now dead Khan, Chance. Driven through that boulder by the roadside was a railroad spike, and attached to that railroad spike was the meanest, maddest creature in the whole Mojave.

Her name was Harper Vermillion – also known as Courier Number Five – and she was chained to a railroad spike in the desert to die. She was also unconscious, unarmed, and topless.

Dark brown eyes opened slowly and stared at the blacktop of the road beside her, steaming in the heat.

It was not particularly hard to make Harper angry, all said and done, but being confined against her will was the sort of thing that made her start foaming at the mouth – and she did that, too. She shrieked and foamed and paced, yanking at the manacles on her wrists until the flesh began to bleed. The pain did not make her calm down and the iron chain rattled furiously as she yanked with all her might.

Blood spattered the sandy soil below her, but she ran against the metal's pull. She grunted and pulled harder, the spike screeching against the rock. Heels dug into the blood-splashed earth below her as she strained against her bonds. She began grinning maniacally as slowly, very slowly, the railroad spike began to move forward. Each millimeter caused it to let out terrible, ringing shrieks of protesting metal. Sweat made Harper's dark skin glow and joined the scarlet droplets on the ground below her feet.

She threw herself against the restraints with new vigor, picturing her sister's worried features, and screwed up her own face in effort, the manacles cutting into her flesh and bone as she pushed against the hot metal. Now the spike was nearly halfway out. Only a little more...

The chain itself couldn't take the force of Harper's pulling and the links where it joined the handcuffs snapped, sending little bits of iron flying. She stood in the dusty earth, grinning ferally down at her newly liberated hands.

"Time to rip some asses open."

Novac

Craig Boone worked a twelve-hour shift in a dinosaur's mouth in Novac, watching for any fool or legionnaire unwary enough to come near his sniper's nest. It was not a job he particularly enjoyed, but he didn't particularly enjoy his life either, so in a way that was rather fitting.

After one such shift on a brisk February Mojave morning, Boone walked out of the dinosaur's hollow stomach and nearly tripped over a passionately sobbing...angel. Or that's what she looked like, anyway.

Rubbing his gritty eyes after staring too long out into the darkness of the wasted plains, Craig stumbled down the stairs and nearly walked into a small figure in a pink dress crying on the bottom step. Realizing that someone was behind her, she lifted her white-blond head and glanced up at him, looking anguished and apologetic. "I'm s-sorry," she hiccuped, stepping out of his path. "I-I must be in your way."

Craig shifted from side to side uncomfortably but didn't make any move to keep walking. Her huge eyes were the color of fresh coffee, swimming with tears, and for just a moment as she stared up at him, there was something about her that kind of reminded him of Carla. She had deep tan skin – either from genetics or lots of walking in the sun, he couldn't say – and long white-blond hair framed her face beneath an old straw hat decorated with a pink ribbon. The soft pink dress matched it. She was only in her upper teens and with her soft eyes and pretty clothes, she looked like a little girl. He couldn't help feeling a little sorry for her. Craig coughed slightly. "Are...is something the matter?" he asked gruffly, scowling at his own meddling.

She wiped her eyes carelessly with the back of a hand. Her eyes met his with silent desperation. "Have you seen a girl this tall?" she choked, holding her hand next to her own head. "Who looks like me but with...with armor on?"

He shook his head. If there was anything he was sure of, it was that he would certainly remember seeing anyone who looked like her.

His response made her bury her face in her hands, shaking her pale head. "She's dead," the young girl said in a horrified whisper. "She's dead out there somewhere and it's my fault!"

Yeah, he knew how that was. He sighed silently to himself. "Tell me what happened."

"M-my sister and I were hired to p-pick up p-packages around the Mojave and deliver them to the S-Strip. Harper s-said we would meet again back here at the d-dinosaur in Novac but no one h-has seen h-her!" The tears flowed freely and she sniffled and tried vainly to wipe her face. "I was s-I wasn't able to come here for a couple weeks and if s-she were okay, she w-would have come looking for me by n-now! I t-think someone...someone..."

Craig's sharp sniper's eyes glittered as an idea formed in his mind. "I can help you find your sister." If his luck was really great, it might even lead him to killing loads of legionnaires...Not that he wanted the poor girl's sister to be a dead or worse. "But first I have to ask you for a favor."

She looked up at him with those shining eyes and any resemblance to Carla faded. His wife had never looked quite so...adoring? Was that the right word? "Y-you'll help me?" No, not adoring. It was a sort of innocent praise and it kind of made him want to squirm. "B-but I d-don't even know your n-name..."

"I'm Craig Boone. And I told you, you'll have to do me a favor first – it's not like charity or anything." He looked down at his boots. She really was like a little girl. How could he ask her to help him kill someone? Well, she could always just say 'no'.

She hardened her trembling chin into an expression of uncommon determination. "I can do _anything_ to f-find Harper."

He took a deep breath and hardened his own jaw. "My wife was sold into slavery. I want you to find the son of a bitch who sold her."

The blond half-child looked confused and sad. "W-wouldn't you prefer to f-find your wife, Mr. Boone?"

"Just Boone. And no. My wife is dead. Just find the person who sold her so I can kill them." His expression as he thought about it grew almost demonic.

She looked much calmer than he thought she would, even in the face of his current expression. It didn't seem to phase her much. She had stopped crying and now stared at him with puffy, red-lined eyes and a serious mien. "Wh-what should I do once I find this p-person?"

He handed her his beret. "Put this on and lead them in front of me when I'm on duty – any time from ten at night to ten in the morning. I'll do the rest."

"I can do that." She swapped her bonnet for the red First Recon beret.

"What's your name, girl?"

She smiled weakly. "I'm Piper. Piper Vermillion."

Craig nodded. That was a good name for her. It was a little girl's name, just like her.

That was how Craig Boone ended up following Piper the half-child down a stretch of dusty, ruined highway. So far they had come across nothing more dangerous than a few half-mad Fiends. He assumed that Piper had no skills with a weapon, but she could whip out the pistol strapped around her waist and shoot a man through the eyes from three hundred yards away. "It looks like you can take care of yourself," he assessed. "You really don't me here to help you."

Piper shook her head. "I...I'm not really that familiar with the Mojave. And I don't know anything about trying to track someone."

"Where are we supposed to start looking?"

"Around Red Rock Canyon." She was in front of him and so didn't see his alarmed expression. She wanted a veteran of the Bitter Springs Massacre to travel around the beehive of the Great Khan encampment? Unaware, Piper tapped the screen of her Pip-Boy. "Mr. Nash marked the place on my map. She was supposed to pick up her package a few miles west of the Canyon and take it into the Strip with a pass through Camp McCarran."

"You assume she wasn't able to make the delivery?" he concluded.

"I know she wasn't," Piper said, her voice quiet but firm. "Harper is...really protective. She wouldn't just leave me."

Although things of this sort happened all the time in the Wasteland, Craig didn't bother to mention this to her. It was entirely possible that her sister Harper had abandoned Piper for some fortune or another. It was all too common in the Mojave and around New Vegas in particular. Personally, he thought that explanation far more likely than any dramatic murder attempts but wasn't mean-spirited enough to say that to the poor girl's face.

They followed Highway 95 up toward Camp McCarran. "I think we have to go around New Vegas," she admitted. "The area all around the Upper I-15 is full of Deathclaws." She turned to Boone uncertainly. One of Piper's main assets was her speed, but she was quite sure she would never be able to outrun a Deathclaw. It was just too hard for legs as short as hers. Harper might have tried to kill them off but Piper wasn't as confident in her shooting skills...or as crazy. "How fast can you kill a Deathclaw?"

"Not fast enough," the sniper grunted. While he would outright admit that he had something of a death wish, mauling by a Deathclaw was not the way he'd choose.

She nodded slightly. "We have to go around."

"That will take much longer," he pointed out. "We'll have to camp out on the western side of New Vegas tonight."

Piper thought about telling him she really didn't need the rest but then decided to stay quiet. After all, she didn't need the rest, but he might.

Freeside

The sun was setting as Harper stumbled into Freeside. She'd lived in the desert her whole life and it was a place she loved, but even she could not bear to be out in the Mojave without water for as long as she'd been walking today – never mind the period of time for which she was unconscious. Her arms and legs were shaking with exhaustion and it was hurting her to swallow anymore, but as the thugs of Freeside loomed too close, she bared her teeth and swiped a very dirty one down the side of the face like a Mother Deathclaw. A particularly stupid pair with a nice set of spiked knuckles and a sledgehammer lost their lives to her, strangled to death by her desperation-strengthened grip, her long nails scraping their throats. She sold the sledgehammer to Mick and Ralph for a couple bottles of water. She opened one and sipped it slowly, waiting for the dehydration to subside enough so that she could think more clearly again.

She leaned against the rough masonry of Old Mormon Fort and stood up. Her wrists were still burning and sticky with blood, but she had to find Piper

That thought was always quite clear in her mind. It was hard to be away from her sister. Piper, as far as she was concerned, was the very best part of her. That and the parts that killed people. She rather liked those parts, too. Harper slipped the spiked knuckles over her hands and flexed her fingers. She was a very good shot and she could use most forms of weaponry (those that weren't too heavy for her to carry, anyway) but there was nothing that could give her satisfaction quite like crushing someone's nose into their skull with her fist. No, there was something so...poetic about the feeling of being able to kill with her bare hands.

She was still topless, but long locks of white-blond hair covered the essentials, so really there was no need for the locals to give her such strange looks. It wasn't as if there was a nudity police who were going to arrest her, so she grinned at them wildly, showing canines that had been filed into points by her oldest cousin. Frightened locals steered themselves out of her path, throwing her alarmed glances out of the corner of their eyes. Being feared by others was something Harper was accustomed to, so much so that she almost saw it as her proper due now.

Still grinning bestially, Harper walked out of the North Gate and out into the Mojave with her newly acquired water and weapon.

Red Rock Canyon

Piper looked more and more uneasy as they approached the plains ahead of Red Rock Canyon, but there was no sign of Harper. In the opposite pass was a cluster of pre-war houses, mostly in ruins. Deeper into the plain was Red Rock Canyon itself, the setting sun lighting it's rocks to fiery brilliance. She looked down at her blue Pip-Boy screen. "Mr. Nash said Harper was supposed to pick up a package right by this rock," she said, pointing on ahead to a boulder jutting out by the roadside. "Oh my god!"

A railway spike was driven halfway through the center of the rock and an iron chain was attached to the end of it. Blood was spattered around the sandy earth in droplets. Boone grabbed the back of her dress as she moved forward, leaving her on the road as he strode forward for a closer look. He sidestepped a little to prevent himself from covering the tracks already there. He crouched down at the edge of the little scuffled stretch of land and began putting it together. "She was lying there," he said, pointing at a larger indentation in the sand. Gingerly, he pick up the length of chain which was coated some places in a layer of dried blood. The end of it was broken off. "They chained her here."

Piper made a sound of distress and again tried to step closer and Boone motioned for her to stay put. There were footprints embedded deeply in the sand, back and forth. Small feet. He glanced back at the indentation. A woman running back and forth across the sand, lunging at the end of her line over and over again. He swept his fingers through the bloodstained earth, finding pieces of the broken chain links, and looked back at Piper. "A big girl, your sister?"

"Hm?"

"Harper." He cleared his throat with embarrassment. "Is she a...large girl?"

The blond girl gave him a strange look. "No, she's my size."

Piper's size? Piper was about average height and nicely curvacious – but certainly not the kind of person he could picture yanking an iron chain until the end of it simply broke. "Then how the hell did she did she break it?"

"Harper is really strong," she said, beaming proudly. Then her face fell significantly. "And...well...Dad says she's...mentally imbalanced."

"Is she?" he asked bluntly. He fully considered it his business to know – for all he knew, they were looking for the female version of Legate Lanius.

Piper flushed and gave a brilliant smile. "She has a few mood swings now and then," she said, lying through her teeth. Her sister had unfortunately inherited some of their family's less desirable traits. "But she's usually pretty laid back."

The bit about Harper being laid back was fairly true – she was normally very lazy, actually. But Harper had mood swings like Piper was mildly generous. And 'mentally unbalanced' were Piper's words – the exact words Cutter Vermillion had uttered were 'raving fucking lunatic'. Of course, Cutter typically said this with a voice of praise and admiration rather than the disappointment that appeared in hers. Quite apart from her deep love of killing things, her sexual appetites were something that Piper preferred not to think about whenever she could possibly help it. Any hookers (always male) Harper engaged inevitably refused to serve her ever again. Thankfully, she spared Piper the details of what, exactly, she did to them out of love for her.

Piper glanced around the Canyon, eying the pre-war houses in the distance with worry, then glancing up at the pass. She switched her Pip-Boy to show her an area map. "Goodsprings is at the other side of that pass," she realized. "That must be where she went. She must have thought she would find me there. Let's go, Boone!"

She trotted off, crouching as they got closer to the pre-war houses at the edge of the road. "Stay down," she whispered, glancing at them nervously. "That's Bonnie Springs – it's a base of the Viper gang."

He nodded and followed behind her, nearly causing her to crash into him when he yanked her arm, pulling her back with his head cocked. Boone sat and listened for a moment. Wings. The sound of many frantically thrumming wings. The road up ahead was filled with cazadors. A glance at Piper showed that her face beneath her lovely caramel colored skin had gone white. "Are you afraid of them?" he murmured, softly so that their large 'friends' wouldn't notice them.

Barely moving, she shook her head. "I'm not," she whispered back, shifting forward. "I'm mean, not more than anyone else. But Harper is. Really is. She's allergic to their venom. One sting and her throat starts to close up."

"She would never go this way, would she?"

"Not unless she was absolutely sure I was in mortal danger," Piper said after some consideration. "And probably only then if she had an antidote supply on her. Let's go back – she must have assumed I would be waiting for her in Novac," she added miserably. "I should have stayed there and waited for her. I should have known she would find a way."

Novac

Manny Vargas was nothing short of highly surprised when a short blond woman wearing nothing but a a pair of men's boxers grabbed his arm and said "Yo! Have you seen a cute blond chick in a dress who looks kinda like me? Cute little voice, answers to Piper?"

Manny blinked. Hadn't he talked to this girl just yesterday? "Miss Piper left with Craig last night," he said frowning. "They went looking for someone name Harper."

"_I'm_ Harper, fool!" She gave him an expression that was probably supposed to be a smile but was closer to being a snarl. She had horribly sharp canines. Manny sincerely hoped she wasn't sucking some poor bastard's cock with teeth like that. "Who the fuck is Craig and where did she go with him?"

"Craig and I were in First Recon together. He's a real nice guy. Quiet. They went north, like. Red Rock, Miss Piper said. I already told you, they went looking f-" He never finished his sentence because Harper had already darted away, sprinting back toward Highway 95 North. Manny shook his head. It was girls like that who made him glad to be gay.

So Harper turned back around and began walking north again. She idly kicked rocks in her path. "Fucking an NCR soldier, eh? I'm not sure if I should laugh until I piss myself or put a bullet through his brain." She sighed, as if the world was on her shoulders, and absently took off the legs of a giant ant with another sledgehammer she found on a Fiend. She left it squirming helplessly in the dry sand of what was formerly a lake with only one leg left. She smiled slightly at the thought of getting to torture the person who dared to even look at her sister. Ironically, nothing she could do would even compare to say, her father or Razor. Harper at least would kill him when it was over. Cutter or Razor would leave the poor son of a bitch alive. "But he'll wish he was born a woman by the time I get through with him."

Outer Vegas

Piper had been basically as close to unresponsive as she could get since they visited Red Rock Canyon. Even more so since they set up camp at the southeastern side of New Vegas. It was night and the fire made her dark eyes look black, her bronzed skin looked like the coals themselves. "Your sister will be fine," Boone said softly, noting how morose she seemed. "Anyone who can break cuffs like that by themselves can manage on their own."

She smiled sadly. "Yeah, she can. That's what worries me." Instead of watching the flames of their borrowed campfire, Piper put her back to the flames and stared in the dark desert mountains. "Harper loves the desert. She wears it like an old shirt. But someday – maybe someday soon – I'm afraid the Mojave will start wearing her."

Huh. That was a strangely accurate description of how he felt most days. Like the Mojave had swallowed him inside itself. "Are you scared for her?" It was somewhat interesting to see this perspective from a person outside of his experience. "Are you scared of losing her?"

"Yes." She stroked the long pale hair coming down over her shoulders. "Harper and I have never been apart, Craig. Not really. She's the most dynamic part of me and I...we aren't good people without each other...we aren't _right._"

While Boone wouldn't exactly agree with that, it wasn't his place to argue either. It wasn't his life and it wasn't his sister they were talking about. Piper turned and snuggled down into the make-shift sleeping bag she had purchased and repaired herself. Dark eyes stared at him from across the flames. "Tell me about your wife, Craig."

She watched his back go rigid. "And why would you want to know about that?"

"Her memory hurts you," she said simply.

Her emotional perception was beginning to disturb him. Had she known he was thinking of Carla as he looked at her face? There was really no resemblance to her (other than blond hair, but his wife's had been darker) so he didn't know why he would get these flashes of strange recognition. "I met Carla on the Strip while I was on leave," he said finally, settling back against a rough tree. "She said that I looked lost."

That made Piper muffle a giggle in her blankets. "I'm sorry, keep going. I just have a hard time imagining you lost..."

"She seemed...different than anyone else. Like she belonged to another time." He thought that was maybe what reminded him so much of Carla when he saw Piper. She didn't seem to quite belong to this world either. But on the other hand, she didn't behave as if she were above it, either. If anything, she seemed frightened by it more than anything else. "We were married in less than a month after that. Manny convinced me to follow him to Novac when our enlistments ran out and it seemed like the perfect idea at the time. Carla and I could settle down, start a family."

"Manny told me Carla didn't like Novac," Piper murmured drowsily. Her eyelashes rested against her cheeks, but Boone could tell she was still listening. He banked the fire against the watching eyes of potential attackers.

"No, she didn't." He found himself biting back the words he wanted to say after that. _I couldn't make her happy. No matter what I did, I couldn't seem to satisfy whatever was on her mind._ It got better – briefly – when they found out about the baby. That lasted only a few weeks though. After that, it got progressively worse and worse, until he came to expect a glare and insults hurled at him when he came home after his shift. Sometimes, in his less guilty moments, he wondered if the silence he was left with now wasn't better than that. He had to excuse more and more of her behavior, blaming it on the move, the stress, the hormones, his own inability to communicate his nightmares with her. "Guess we got married too soon, too young, but I wanted to be near her. Wanted to see what she saw from whatever world her mind was in."

"Not your fault," Piper murmured, so softly he almost didn't hear her. "Carla must have had some reason for making her choices. She must have really loved you."

Boone again bit back the bitter words lingering inside his mouth. _I doubt that, some days. _But Piper didn't deserve to hear that and he refused to speak ill of his late wife. Particularly since he knew it would only make him feel guilt later.

Because they were so close to Camp McCarran, they were fairly safe setting up camp without a watch – the only enemies who would be this close to McCarran were Fiends, and they were so doped up that stealth was impossible for them. Boone fell asleep watching the unwavering stars hanging above the black canopy of the Mojave Wastelands, who stared coldly back at him in their heavens.

When he opened his eyes again, night still reigned over the desert and the coals still burned amber in the campfire. He couldn't say precisely what had woken him. Nightmares were not uncommon but he didn't think he'd been asleep long enough to have one. Without moving his head, Boone glanced over the dying fire to check on Piper's sleeping form – and was deeply unsettled to find his gaze locked onto the shadowed eyes of a young woman standing across the coals from him.

It had to be a hallucination. The darkness of the night made her hair appear white as bleached bones. The shadows drew deep, vicious hollows into the bronzed skin of her face, made more exaggerated by her tangled hair, black streaks of dirt decorating her cheeks, wild eyes, and her lack of clothing. She looked like a tribal phantom. "Piper?" he muttered, voice husky with his dazed state of half-consciousness. He was too sleepy to clearly comprehend what was wrong with this situation. "What are you doing, Piper?"

She was fast – very fast – but then again, he already knew that. She leaped over the flames and landed in the dirt in front of him, sending up a cloud of dusty earth that obscured his vision. When it returned again, he was unnerved to find Piper's face inches from his own, the savagery in her eyes more evident than before from this close proximity. A hand darted forward and grabbed him by the front of the shirt. Her voice came out strangely raspy, carrying a dark amusement that didn't fit Piper at all. "Can't tell one piece of ass from another, can you soldier boy?"

Through his confusion, Boone sensed she was going to strike him a second before her hand moved, which was the only way he was able to block the blow that followed. She was...much stronger than her size suggested. But he was still larger and taller than her and when they struggled, he did manage to get her body beneath him, although it was like wrestling with a human-sized nightstalker – complete with the biting, the hissing, and the clawing actually. He had bleeding scratches all over his back and there was a bite mark on his forearm that was beginning to swell by the time he finally got her fully pinned beneath him. They stared at each other in silence, until Boone realized that there was something off. He was sitting on her legs to keep her from moving or kicking and he was able to get her wrists clamped to the ground above her head.

"What are you?" Boone demanded, knowing she would say a wraith, a shadow, a demon created to hunt him down and drive him insane. He should never have said anything about Carla, should never have opened those wounds, barely healed as they were.

A voice above his head gasped "Harper!"

The monster beneath him writhed and arched and laughed, laughed like a person deranged. "I like your soldier boy, Piper. Share with me?"

"Boone, you can get off – that's Harper." She saw his shoulder twitch, hesitating. He wasn't sure he could let her up without getting killed, or at least maimed. _Smart, _Piper's mind acknowledged grimly, knowing her sister's passion for all things warlike. She was admittedly naïve, but Piper was not stupid and she knew Harper better than anyone. _I don't even know if I can convince her to stand down._

Boone looked down at the feral creature uncertainly. Piper said they were sisters – she'd never mentioned that they were twins. And Harper certainly WAS her twin. Lying still on the ground now, looking over at her sister, gave Harper a much softer expression. It was the kind of expression Piper's face would carry, but he could still perceive something...not quite right about the girl beneath him. _Would be almost pretty...if a deathclaw were ever pretty..._

Finally she glanced up at him, her countenance now something as close to 'calm' as she probably got. "If you're going to undress me with your eyes, you might wanna let me get some clothes on first, soldier boy."

As a reflex, he glanced down long enough to assess that she was still half-naked and now, completely exposed before he quickly leaped up and backed away from her. Harper rolled on the ground with laughter. "Jesus christ," she gasped, tears streaming down her face. "He's like the male version of you, Piper. Where the hell did you find this guy?"

"A dinosaur," Piper answered in a small voice. "I can keep him, right?"

Boone scowled as Harper sat up and eyed him speculatively. "He didn't knock you up, did he?"

Boone's expression of building rage led Piper to hastily say "No, of course not. But...he wanted to come with me...so..."

Harper gave a sigh, which was surprisingly weary. "You can't trust every idiot that you meet, Piper," she said, with an equally surprising gentleness. "One day, I'm not going to be there to catch them and...and something bad will happen to you. I swear, you have the best damn luck on earth."

Oddly, Piper's hand drifted to her forehead, covering the skin as if feeling for a fever. "I know. I promise, I'll be more careful. Craig is all right though. He was helping me look for you."

Harper's dark eyes met his in the darkness. Boone felt a shiver of that wild beast he'd seen through eyes half awake and the hair on the back of his neck rose. "We'll see, soldier boy."

He met her eyes steadily, saying nothing. He still saw a monster lurking behind her face.

The Tops

Benjamin Campbell didn't particularly like the name his mother had given him, which was just one among many of the reasons he preferred going by simply 'Benny'. But as he awoke yet again that night, with the sheets again soaked in his nervous, panicked sweat, he recalled something she used to say to him. "Benjamin, a man will reap the seeds he's sown."

It was cliché, but perhaps if Benny listened to his mother more often, things wouldn't be this way now. _And I keep seeing those damn eyes._

He wasn't going to kill her. He hadn't planned to kill her. But something told him that she wasn't going to give up that damn Chip, no matter what line he used on her. Those big brown eyes just held his soul in their steady depths and waited patiently for him to make his move. His move had been two to the head, and those big eyes had closed forever. _Blood spreading around her body in the dirt... _The Khans had started to bury her, but something made Benny wave them off. It seemed wrong to cover her, somehow, although in normal circumstances, that was how one showed respect. _Angelic face turned to the night sky, at peaceful rest but for the shattered holes in her naked forehead..._

The angel-girl came to him still in his dreams at night, pulling him into the grave with her, embracing him in a hole much deeper than the one he'd dug. She gave him the sweetest kiss as the dirt began enclosing them both. In the dream, he was unconcerned, but as he awoke, the strangely vivid sensation of being buried alive in the arms of a corpse unsettled Benny beyond normal human unease. _I'm being haunted by a girl I knew for less than three minutes. _

Benny glanced back at the rumpled sheets before shaking his head and grabbing a bottle of scotch from the bedside table. He walked to the elevators in his underwear, taking it all the way to the roof. He watched the glittering lights of New Vegas from his prime location. Over his shoulder, a dead girl leaned close to his ear, whispering soundless litanies, her lungs having no breath to draw and her dark eyes glazed pale by death. Her blond hair trailed over his arm, pricking up gooseflesh there. Benny took another generous swallow of his scotch and prayed for morning to come soon.


	2. You're In Vegas Baby!

A/N: I just realized that this story is probably going to be rather OOC...but it's my story, so I don't really care. Moving on...the later half of this chapter is blatantly weird, but Panda was like "pfff, just go with it!" so I said 'fuck it' and...here we are.

Benny says bye bye sanity, hello morphine trippin'!

You're In Vegas, Baby

Outer Vegas

Craig Boone sat on a rock, pointedly facing away from the scene behind him. Piper sat next to him in the opposite direction, covering her face with a hand in exasperation. "Please put some clothes on, Harper," she muttered, face flushed with embarrassment at her intractable sister's behavior. "Craig shouldn't have to put up with you walking around like that."

"What?" Harper complained, scowling down at her torso. She was still wearing nothing but a pair of men's boxer-briefs, her long pale hair spilling down over the front of her upper body. "I've got all the essentials parts covered up, for chrissake! I hardly think I could distract soldier boy here even if I were giving him a lapdance, so I don't see what you're bitchin' about."

Piper sighed. "I need to get onto the Strip in order to get the Platinum Chip back and deliver it to Mr. House like my contract says – if I don't, no one will ever want to hire us again and we won't have any money." She stared at her primal-looking twin. "Craig says none of the Securitron guards will let you in dressed that way, and I believe him. You look like-"

Harper cut her off. "Like what I am," she said in a hard voice. "I look like what I am, Piper. Those shits aren't any better than we are, no matter what they say."

"But New Vegas doesn't want to see that, Harper," Piper said softly. "They want to believe they are and always have been the Pre-War ideal. Please, we need to eat...and..."

"...And we can't go home again." Harper finished. This time it was her turn to sigh. She sounded like a dog who'd just been sent to the shed. "Okay, okay. Got something for me to wear?"

Piper's beaming was like the sun."Doc Mitchell gave me these neat little pieces of tech. They're called Pip-Boys. He gave me his wife's and said you could have his old one. And I found...Playboy was out on the highway, out by Nipton. He-he gave me our old clothes. Said he knew Mama would want us to keep 'em."

Harper's eyes became bright. "Give." Behind him, Boone heard the sounds of items being moved around and then cloth rustling for a few moments. A belt being buckled told him it was safe to look now. Leather armor was apparently something Harper wore before girls made the decision to try their hands at being couriers. "Let's go then. Gotta light, babe?"

Piper suppressed a smile as they began walking across the sands. "You know I don't smoke. You shouldn't either, you know. It's bad for your health."

She lit her cigarette with a plan old match. "Because everyone knows how health-conscience I am," she said with the cigarette between her lips, throwing the match to the ground and stomping it under her boot before the flame could burn her. "Fucking health nut, that's me."

Behind them, Boone snorted. As different as these two sisters were – naïve as Piper was, as strange as Harper was, something in him couldn't deny that it felt good to have them around. Good to hear human voices without really having to participate – but yet, still participating just by being there. It was a little unorthodox...but he felt certain he could get used to this. If nothing else, it was better than the fucking dinosaur.

Freeside

"Why are all of the people here staring at us?" Piper asked in a small voice, unconsciously taking a step behind her sister's back.

_Because we're an NCR ex-sniper and a pair of identical twins, _Boone answered internally, watching Harper shift slightly, putting a hand on the sledgehammer she had with her.

She grinned at them. "I may have...uh...been here earlier."

Piper groaned, because Harper was easily capable of every scenario she could imagine – and some that she couldn't, come to think of it. "What did you do?"

"Well...you know what I was wearing earlier?"

"Mhm..." Oh, she had a terrible feeling about this.

"I had to get those boxers somewhere." Piper's face went so pale Boone was afraid she might faint. It really was very easy to embarrass her. "Don't worry, they already cleaned up the body."

Boone was wondering if she was doing this on purpose to make her twin squirm or if she was really that odd. Harper flashed him a grin. _Because it's a little of both, soldier boy._

"This is Freeside," Boone told Piper, gesturing to the grimy people and dilapidated buildings. "You get to the Strip from here. But you'll need to pass the security check to get in – either show the Securitron a special identification card or pass the credit check."

Harper grumbled. "Ain't got no fuckin' money."

Piper's face pulled anxiously beneath her pink-ribboned bonnet. "Card? Credit check?"

"I don't know where you get the card and the credit check will be 2,000 caps – per person," he added, trying to ignore the brief look of hope that had lit up her eyes. Apparently she had enough only to get one of them onto the Strip.

Harper knew it, too. "Just go in," she told her softly, eying their rough surroundings. "I'll meet you in a couple weeks, Piper. Just go. We'll be here."

"But..." Her eyes fell on Boone's silent form. "I promised to take you with me," she whispered "Not to leave you behind at the first road block."

"This isn't a roadblock," Harper said, rolling her eyes a little, as though she thought her sister was being overly dramatic. "It's only a detour. Go. Hurry up. Start using that crazy luck of yours to win us a fortune so I can stop having to haul my ass around the Mojave for every moron that says 'fetch'."

Piper smiled and tactfully declined to mentioned that anyone who told Harper to fetch would likely end up losing a limb. "I'll come back when I find someplace to stay," she assured them. "So you'll know where to find me once you get in."

"Me and soldier boy over here can set up shop at the Atomic Wrangler – don't worry about finding it. They have criers all over the place who'll show you the way."

Piper gave her sister a large hug which, to Harper's credit, didn't really seem to bother her the way Boone thought it might. She seemed like more of a hands-off type of person. They walked with her to the Strip gate and saw her walk up to the Securitron guard – who apparently found her credit satisfactory, because he rolled aside and left the way clear for her. Piper looked back at them and waved, looking again like a lost little girl. When she disappeared into the bright lights and sounds beyond and the chain-link fencing closed behind them, Harper turned back toward Freeside and Boone followed. She looked back at him with something like surprise, peering through to the shaded eyes. "You're really coming with me, are you, soldier boy?"

"Is there a reason I shouldn't?" Boone deadpanned.

"Not really," she said, matching his bland tone. "But I figured you'd bail once Piper left. I'm not sunshine and rainbows like she is."

"So I've noticed." He couldn't say he wasn't going to go to bed with bruises tonight, but...at least spending time with Harper wasn't likely to be boring. He glanced around wearily as they began going back farther and farther into the reaches of Freeside. "Where exactly are we going?"

"To see The King." Harper bared her teeth in a parody of a smile. "Ralph says he's the one who calls the shots around here – if there was a way to get into the Strip on the cheap, he'd know it. And even if there isn't a way, if he's in change, he's got all the caps around here."

It wasn't the worst plan Boone ever heard, so he continued following her into Freeside. No, with Harper, it wouldn't get boring.

The Strip

As she stepped into the glittering bright Strip, Piper did not know how she was going to get the Platinum Chip back – but she did know that she had exactly as long as it was going to take to walk into The Tops to figure it out. Her short conversation with Mr. House had only steeled her resolve to put the Chip back into her own custody. _Harper would know what to do_, she thought sadly, frustrated that she hadn't thought to ask her sister's advice. _Harper would be able to threaten or seduce Benny into getting the Chip back. Why, why didn't I tell her how much trouble I'm in?_

She didn't know how Boone had ever mistaken her for Harper. Her father had loved both of his daughters, but Piper – naïve and bloodless Piper – could never have made him proud the way Harper could. She had strength and courage the kind she didn't think she could ever possess. _But if Craig could __mistake Harper for me...maybe it's possible to trick Benny into thinking I'm Harper? As Harper, could I __do whatever I had to do to get the Platinum Chip back?_

The problem with threatening was that you had to be able to back it up. Piper could talk and act the way Harper would talk and act – but she didn't think she'd have the guts to pull out a weapon on the leader of one of the Three Families.

Could she seduce him? She thought she could, as long as she could hide behind the guise of Harper, but would Benny be seduced by a woman whose face was identical to the that of a woman he'd killed? Would he believe that woman's twin would want to sleep with him?

There was only one way to really find out.

The Tops

"No offense, but you look like hell, boss," one of the other Chairmen said in passing, cocking their head at him. Benny only scowled because this was the third person to say that to him today alone, never mind Swank saying it every time he saw him. "You should get some sleep."

It was the big shot of Med-X drifting on lazy clouds through his veins that merely caused Benny to grind his teeth in silence rather than picking up a vase on one of the side tables and hurling at him. The cotton it filled his head with was what was currently holding him up. He thought he was showing remarkable restraint. How was he supposed to sleep? How could he sleep, knowing that a dead girl would come to visit him as soon as he was left to his own company?

Benny shuddered. Sometimes now even in crowds he would think he'd caught a glimpse of Her through the corner of his vision, a pale shadow that would never quite abandon him. Every time he would turn his head to search for Her, She would vanish in a blink.

He needed to take some time off, get away from the casino. He wondered if he went back to Goodsprings, back to Her grave, and paid his respects...if he gave Her a nicer burial...

_Don't even know Her name._ Yes, he would take a few days off in a week, go back and give Her a nice grave – maybe even marble like they did in Pre-War days, with Her real name on it – whatever that was. And maybe then She would rest in peace, and let him do the same.

Blue eyes flickered to the corners of the room, intently pursuing a shadow they would never find.

Freeside

The young man was, in Boone's humble opinion, in danger of having his teeth knocked out. He sneered at both of them. "You gotta pay if you wanna get in to see the King."

Harper managed to surprise him. "We're new in town and wanted to pay our respects to the great King."

Pacer looked mildly soothed. "Now that's what I like to hear," he drawled, leering at her. "People that know their place in the world. You go on, little lady."

Behind his sunglasses, Boone raised his eyebrows. Apparently Pacer either didn't have the subtly or the intelligence to hear the mocking antagonism that had been dripping from Harper's suspiciously reverent tone. Either way, it worked in their favor. She blew Pacer a kiss with an ironic smile on her face.

It was amazing how many people were willing to take advantage of free help.

"What fucking kind of name is Orris?" Harper asked conversationally on their way out of the Kings' School of Impersonation. "That's the kind of name you give to a kid when you don't like him and you already have too many. And I wouldn't even pay a man to fuck me for two hundred caps – why the fuck would I pay one that much to watch my ass? Twenty caps says this guy is unbelievably obnoxious."

"I wouldn't take that bet," Boone answered.

It was good that he hadn't – as predicted Orris was indeed unbelievably obnoxious, but nothing really seemed amiss until they were a block or two away from the Strip gate though. "Those guys up ahead look suspicious," he told Harper, rather unconvincingly at that, glancing nervously back at the sniper following close behind them. "Let's take this way over here."

Harper eyed the punks. They looked like nothing more than dirty little scabs to her, but she assumed this had something to do with what they were investigating. The hair on the back of her neck started to prickle with awareness and she rolled her eyes at Orris's back. Annoyingly obnoxious and a terrible actor. What a catch. As they came up to the next corner, Orris suddenly sped up, leaving Harper behind even as she tried to keep up, wary for some trick up ahead. It did surprise her a little when he pulled the gun and fired the shots. She heard Boone grunt as he sped up with her, keeping pace a foot or two behind her.

Orris fired three shots at the incoming locals, all four of them going down in less than thirty seconds. Which would be impressive – if it was legitimate. "Are you alright?" he asked, affecting a breathless, innocent tone that didn't suit him, and didn't fool her. "Those thugs were about to attack you."

"You fired three shots – how did you manage to kill all four of them?" Harper kept her face blank, but her voice was trying not to laugh at him.

"I aimed just right." She had to give it to him – at least he stuck with his lie. "The second bullet passed through his side and hit the punk behind."

She couldn't help it anymore – she laughed. "That's the biggest crock of garbage I've ever heard," she choked, wiping her streaming eyes. "You've been getting your friends to let you shoot at 'em so you can play the hero and get more business."

Orris narrowed his eyes at her. "I'd keep that quiet if I were you," he threatened. "People who run their mouth off around here get in trouble."

Her laughter cut off abruptly. Her heart beat faster with the thrill of violence, making her sound a little breathless. It would be harder to do with her bare hands since he was wearing metal armor, but Harper had confidence in her ability to kill people. Unfortunately, he disappointed her by walking away. She went back to the people laying in the street and kicked the nearest person in the ribs. They gave a startled yelp and started to get up and limp away. Harper grumbled angrily and kicked again and the victims scrambled to get out of stomping range. "Like I can't tell a dead person from a live one. Ffff. What a waste of time."

The Tops

Benny gave a silent sigh of agony as he slipped beneath the sheets and Her arms slid around his waist. "Come with me," She whispered, rasping in his ear. He didn't know when She began to speak to him. He didn't know why or how She knew his real name. "Come to me and everything will be alright..."

He squeezed his eyes shut, Her hand leading his to the gun at his bedside table. His forefinger stroked Maria lovingly. This was the gun that ended Her life, his Maria. She died without pain, he made sure of that. Two to the head, quick and painless. Maria could make it quick and painless for him, too. Benny could go with Her, like She told him. The thought was surprisingly tempting – so much so that he actually leaned into Her embrace. "Please..." he whispered, letting his head fall onto Her breast, where Her heart was eerily still. He wasn't even certain of what he was begging for. Peace? Forgiveness? Acceptance? Death? "Please."

Her cold fingers brushed his face, Her frozen body leaching the warmth from his. Her icy breath washed over as She simply sighed "Benjamin."

"Please leave me alone," he whimpered into Her neck, wrapping Her in his arms. "Please, baby. Please."

The cold of her presence was making him numb. Or maybe that was the Med-X. Her lips caressed his ear as her breathless voice whispered "...will be alright."

He dragged himself from the bed and stumbled down the hall to the elevators. He was going to go to a party and surround himself with people. He was going to go to the bar and drink until he couldn't see straight. He was going to go into the casino and find some hot little dame. Anything but sleeping with a dead woman in his bed again tonight.

As he reached the casino floor, his heart slammed into his ribs and stuttered around his chest. She was there, right in front of him, in the middle of full daylight. Even the Med-X couldn't dull his reaction to this – Benny suddenly felt at once sick to his stomach and strangely relieved. She really was coming to take him to the grave with Her and this would soon be all over.

Piper peered through the strange atmosphere of the night-lit casino floor, looking for the man in the checkered suit. She only had time to lift her head up as she glanced around the room before meeting his blue eyes. For a moment, they both stared at each other, frozen with surprise and something like horror and anticipation. She was trying to figure out how to approach him when, with the blink of an eye, Benny was taking her by the hand and leading her with him, away from the main casino floors.

She was frightened as he took her into the elevator with him. Had someone warned Benny that she was still alive and coming to meet him? Would he do the job right this time? She was so busy envisioning how he was likely to kill her that she was struck dumb with surprise when Benny's arm came around her, crushing her between his body and the elevator wall. His hand grabbed her jaw, tilting her mouth to him at an angle. "Peace," he begged, just before he kissed her.

Piper gasped at the passion and desperation behind his movements, squeaking as his tongue slid over hers and his hands slid over the fabric of her dress, settling on the curve of her behind. She had been kissed before – back home, Blackjack had a crush on her and he was the nicest one there who wasn't related to her. But Blackjack had been only a boy and Benny was many things, but not a boy. She hung onto the back of his checkered suit, trying to figure out what was going on here. Instinctively, she tried to keep up with him, despite his crazed and erratic movements.

"Ben-" she started, cutting off her gasp with a choke. His hands, white and smooth, lifting the back of her dress and working her panties down her thighs.

"Everything will be all right," he whispered, his eyes half-mad.

He kneeled beneath her skirt and Piper whimpered.

The Strip

Piper's dark eyes darted back at the brightly lit building behind her. Her clothes weren't on quite right, her hair was a mess, and her emotions were caught somewhere between sadness, excitement, and fear. But in her pocket was a Platinum Chip, fresh and shiny with it's Pre-War origins and ideals. Her stomach was tense and rolling. She didn't think she could take this to Mr. House anymore. It felt like there was a time-bomb in her pocket. She had to talk to Harper – they would figure out what to do together, the way they always did.

The Executive Suite in The Tops was large and she hadn't known which door was the exit. She had found the door to the elevators eventually, but first she'd found Yes Man. Piper had also found that the balance of the entire world – or the entire world as she knew it – was focused on this tiny object that she, Piper Vermillion, held inside the threadbare pocket of her pink, patched dress. Suddenly the man in the checkered suit's motivations for killing her no longer seemed so petty and as soon as she realized that, she also realized that she had to get away from Benny as quickly as possible while the Chip was still in her arms.

Benny...

It was no secret that Piper had a soft spot for people who needed her help. He'd expressed it in a particularly _unusual _way, but she knew as he kissed her he was asking her for help. He was also...strangely tender. Piper felt herself blushing and kept her gaze pinned firmly to the sidewalks, though of course no one could possibly know what she was thinking. She closed her eyes for a moment, and saw Benny, lying naked and now relaxed upon his own bed. She knew he was tense, but hadn't realized how tense until she saw how at ease he was then. For a second, she bit her lip while checking his pulse, just to make sure. After all, she'd never seen a person so peaceful unless they were dead. But no...his heart was still beating steadily. She made herself stand and walk away.

Piper shook herself. She couldn't let herself become engrossed with her own thoughts in places like this. Harper would tell her to stay aware. Her instincts' warnings proved correct. A man in a neat brown suit approached her with a sly, far too oily smile. "Hello, Piper."

Even in the mind of naïve little Piper, warning bells clanged and crashed like thunder and her body froze with panic. She managed to force her lips into tiny motions, hoarsely whispering "How do you know my name?"

"I know a lot about you." There was something a bit too clever in this man's handsome young face. It reminded her a bit of Harper, but there was something that scared her, too. 'Hunting the weak is a waste of time and leads you into a trap of weakness,' their father told them as children 'Killing the weak and killing the strong is the difference between believing you have power and actually having it'. Piper had a feel this man hunted whatever was within his reach.

"But I don't know anything about you," Piper said carefully.

"I am Vulpes Inculta, a servant of Caesar and his glorious Legion. I know what Benny did to you and how you got revenge. A very bold move. Caesar likes bold." He held out a little medallion for her. "Wear this, and come to Cottonwood Cove." The smile on his face would have made her shiver, if her spine wasn't so rigid. "I look forward to seeing you again, Piper."

He walked away, disappearing into the endless nightlife of the Strip. Piper held herself tense until he was out of sight. When he was, she ran straight for the gates of Freeside, straight for the safety of the Atomic Wrangler, to the familiar knowledge and comfort of her sister's unmatched lust and prowess in violence and her ferocious temper. Those things could keep her safe. Those things could hide her from the world of Vulpes Inculta.

Atomic Wrangler

The sliver of light from the hallway of the Atomic Wrangler woke Boone, his sleep uneasy as it ever was. He slid is hand to the rifle beside him, but a familiar voice whispered "Harper?"

Piper. His gaze darted over to the other bed in the room. Harper was a very heavy sleeper...that is, when she actually did go to sleep. They'd spent the entire night roaming Freeside without her energy seeming to flag the least bit. When they arrived at the Wrangler, she stripped to her underclothes and passed out in the first ten minutes. The soft voice didn't wake her but the light made her roll over to face the wall, the tangled expanse of her hair twisting into ever increasing disarray.

Piper stepped into the room, shutting out the light with the soft click of the door closing. Louder, she said "Harper, wake up." As Boone's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he heard a sleepy groan and the creak of bedsprings as Piper settled beside her sister on the other bed. A little teary, Piper pushed Harper's shoulder. "Please. Wake up."

"Ssse problem?" Harper slurred, rolling onto her back. He heard the joints in her neck and back popping back to life. "Ya cryen?"

"N-no," Piper answered, sounding like someone with a bad head cold. "I-I got the Ch-chip back."

There was a silence and then Harper, sounding more aware, said "How, Piper?"

Boone's stomach twisted uncomfortably and he suddenly stared at the ceiling with deep interest. This was a conversation he really did not want to be present for, even if they did think he was asleep. Hell, now he wished he really was.

"I-I..." Her voice trailed off into a whisper. "I had se-sex with Benny."

Oh jesus fucking christ. The silence stretched on uncomfortably and Boone stared fixedly at the ceiling and willed them to move on to any other goddamn topic of conversation. People being burned alive, major organ operations, violent retching, _any other topic._ Harper finally softly said "Not what you thought it was, was it, kiddo?"

"No. It was...different." His eyes were adjusted now and he could see Piper playing with the hemline of her dress nervously as Harper silently sat up and began put her clothes on. "I can't give the Platinum Chip to Mr. House, Harper."

In a growl made nearly inaudible by her frustration, Harper said "Why not, Piper?"

"I found something, over at Benny's." So softly he almost didn't hear her, Piper said "The Chip is valuable, Harper. Really valuable."

Her sister snorted. "I kinda guessed that already, Piper. Most people don't ask for pieces of worthless Pre-War junk delivered to them from miles away. Not unless they're really crazy or really stupid. That's not entirely impossible, but not likely given how much money the guy has."

"I'm not talking about that kind of value, Harper," Piper whispered in the darkness. "This thing...this thing is priceless. This-The Chip has the power to control all of New Vegas...all of the Mojave."

Harper sounded like she was sneering. "Nothing in this world can do that."

Piper's fatal certainty was unshakeable and it showed through in her voice. "The Platinum Chip can."

The Tops

Benny slitted his eyes open. She was standing above him, Her eyes heavy and still. She leaned over him, silken hair stroking his chest. He could feel the outline of Her body against his arm and it called to a distant part of his brain that wasn't even awake yet. Her hand came up and caressed his neck, the soft fingertips fluttering at his pulse point. It lingered there for a moment before Her body slipped away and She was gone.

He closed his eyes again and fell asleep.

In morning when he got up from the bed, a pair of pure white gloves were lying on the other end table and something occurred to Benny at that very moment.

Lying with his head between her breasts, her heartbeat was soothing and alive.

And so was she.

Atomic Wrangler

Harper didn't have the patience for the slots or the kind of luck for blackjack – those were games Piper was much better at. But she had enough predatory instincts for poker. Even if she did have to work on her strategy a little more. "Raise," she grunted, taking a drag off her cigarette. She was looking at a dead man's hand and she knew the man across from her was bluffing. She wasn't so sure about the ghoul at her right. But weaknesses like fear, like desperation, weren't familiar to Harper.

Her twin was at Old Mormon fort with Harper's new pet, Rex, talking to that Julie Farkas woman about what could be done for the cyberdog.

Piper's new pet, the sniper, was standing behind her. Her dear, sweet sister probably meant his presence to be reassuring but Harper was not fond of the sensation of someone standing deliberately outside of her range of sight. He was a good shot out in the desert, but here in town, in an ordinary situation, it made her feel on guard all the time.

Her cheek twitched as she heard the sound of someone approaching the table and assumed it was one of the whores/waitresses who worked the Wrangle. Francine Garrett was cheap and insisted that if the prostitutes were not otherwise engaged, they might as well make themselves useful by doubling as waitstaff for the casino portion. She smelled the scent of dirt and sweat just before her head turned and she was greeted by an NCR trooper in full attire. "You're the one everyone on the Strip is talking about, right? I have a message for you from Ambassador Crocker."

"You little-" Before she could give the runt a piece of her mind, he darted back out of the smoky room. Rolling her eyes, she unfolded the note meant for her sister, her expression growing even more terrifying with each line she read.


	3. Baby, You're A Dog

A/N: I, the author, solemnly pledge not to start a story I will never finish.

Baby, You're A Dog

Atomic Wrangler

Harper did not say anything about the note from Ambassador Crocker until Piper returned to the Wrangler with Rex after getting Julie's advice. She finished her poker game and went to James, paying for a bottle of chilled beer and a cold Nuka-Cola for her twin. Piper saw the steely look on her sister's face and so followed demurely when she made an imperious motion with her hand to mount the staircase.

When the door of their room was closed and Boone leaning against it as a guard, she said "I guess the Chip really can do everything you said – the New Republic of California seems to think you owe it to them to do the 'everything' part for them." She was scowling deeply now, lines of anger deepening in her face that would surely distinguish her from her gentle twin later on in life. "This cocksucker Crocker has summoned you to the NCR Embassy because it is 'your duty as a citizen of the Mojave' to 'assist it's progress into the future'. Gag me."

Piper stood frozen, her hand still gripping the Nuka-Cola bottle, condensation from the glass dripping from her fingertips onto the dirty carpet. "Benny-Benny was trying to take over New Vegas with Yes Man using the Chip...and Yes Man said that as long as we had it, we could basically follow his plans and do the same thing. And-and..." She broke off, her voice cracked into a strangled whisper of fear. _"Vulpes Inculta wants me."_

A bolt went up Craig Boone's spine, like an electrical shock. His face was sent into a snarl and he nearly frothed at the lips – but Harper beat him to it. "You are never going to Cottonwood Cove," she said in a strangely quiet voice. Despite the low volume, the command behind them was no less strong, and it made her tone crack like a whip. "You are NEVER going within ten miles of Cottonwood Cove."

"I-I still don't know what we should do," Piper said, becoming frazzled now, tugging at the ends of her hair.

"We?" Harper's eyebrows raised. Then she said something Boone found very odd. "There is no 'we' – remember, Piper? There's only you. What do you want to do?"

Piper was clearly not to used to Harper taking a backseat in the decision-making. She looked positively bewildered, eyes darting around the room as if searching for someone who had the answers she needed - Harper stared back stone-faced. Boone wondered briefly if Harper had been making decisions for the two of them their whole lives. The idea wasn't so far-fetched, considering the twins' respective personalities and Piper's near hysteria at having to make her own life choices. "I...I don't know," she said, shaking her head. "I don't know. I don't know!"

"Then find out quickly," Harper said sharply. "This isn't about me, Piper. This is and always will be about you. Your destiny is the only thing that matters now."

"But it's yours, too, Harper," Piper said, somewhat desperately.

Her sister gave her a dark look. "No, Piper. I gave up mine. I gave up my future, my destiny because I wanted yours more." Harper gripped her sister's shoulders very tightly, but Piper did not wince. "I'm going to make your future fucking fabulous - to make up for the one I threw away."

Mount Charleston

Piper was in love with the mountain environment surrounding Jacobstown. At the highest peaks surrounding the town, the snow – that was what it was called, snow – never melted. She very much wanted to see this, too, but Marcus assured her that no one in their group had come dressed prepared for the journey. "The peaks are much colder than any Mojave night," he cautioned. "Your party would freeze by the time you reached the top."

She had lived her whole life in the heat of the Mojave's sand and could not even begin to imagine such a thing, but she silently promised herself that she would see it before she died. What she liked most about Mount Charleston, though, was the air. The trees were tall and the foliage on their branches rough and thin – almost like very large cacti – which Marcus said were called 'needles', which Piper thought a particularly apt description. They gave almost the most beautiful smell though, lovelier to her than the prettiest desert flowers. A blanket borrowed from the old lodge and set beneath these trees surrounded her in this scent. Boone found her hugging her knees beneath the pine and staring at the mountain peaks.

Following Piper's unconscious cues, whenever the twins split up, he stayed with Harper. Piper, however well-intentioned she was, seemed to think that Harper needed some kind of leash. She also seemed to think that Boone was the perfect person to be that leash and so he behaved accordingly. Unfortunately, it made no difference because if Harper didn't want to be followed, she'd disappear whenever she pleased and then he'd have to find Piper again. This had happened less than an hour ago and so he stood silently at the edge of her blanket.

Piper smiled up at him and patted a spot next to her, where he dutifully sat down. "Don't you love it here?" she asked cheerfully. "I think it's so beautiful."

Boone followed her gaze up the mountainside. "It looks like where I grew up."

Her eyes were alight. "Really? Up in the mountains? Where was it?"

"It's called Red Slate Mountain. I lived there with my mother and father in a tiny house made of rough timber miles away from the nearest town."

Piper sighed deeply. "That sounds lovely. Harper and I were our parents' only children, but we had to share space with eight of our cousins..."

"You must have a very large family."

Now she looked uncomfortable. He noticed that Piper didn't often actually talk about herself. She was more interested in the people around her. "Yes and no. A lot of people are...kind of related to me. But closely, there's only my parents and Harper. I have an uncle who's still alive and...well, and lots of cousins. You didn't have any cousins or aunts or uncles, Craig?"

He shook his head. "No. My parents died in a brush fire when I was sixteen and when I was seventeen, I lied about my age and enlisted in the NCR. I was pretty good with a rifle and had good eyes, so in a year, I ended up in the First Recon."

"Where you met Manny," Piper concluded, still smiling brightly at him. "Did you enjoy being part of First Recon?"

Boone's light brown eyes flickered and turned shadowy and he looked away. "I think 'enjoyed' is maybe too strong a word. I was good at it." Before she could ask any more personal questions, he stood quickly. Piper's questions stabbed at him too deeply. "I'm going up to the lodge, that's probably where Harper went."

Though he headed toward the lodge just as he said, Boone didn't actually enter the building – he circled around the bungalows and walked down the road a while, listening to the mountain wind rock the trees and the grass. It was an eerie sound, like the moaning and creaking of an old derelict house. But here the walls were snow-capped mountain tops and the ceiling was the wide sky stretching above him, turning red and orange and faintly purple with the setting of the sun. The carpet was a patchwork rug of beaten browns, soft or prickly greens. He inhaled the pine-scented air deeply to calm himself.

Piper had the best of intentions, but she was moving irresistibly closer to discovering his involvement in the Massacre at Bitter Springs. Probably he would end up telling her one day, if he didn't get both her and her sister killed before then, but not now. Not here, when he could close his eyes and pretend that he was on Red Slate Mountain with his childhood home standing at his back. He didn't want that conversation blotting this out.

Boone was so focused on trying to quell thoughts of Bitter Springs that he forgot to more closely take stock of his surroundings. His boot was three inches from stepping on the body before he realized that someone was lying in the tall grasses a few hundred yards outside of Jacobstown. Boone jerked his leg back and leaned down to look, the wind picking up and tickling his face with a few strands of pale hair. The smell of ash and something metallic drifted into his nostrils. He looked up – a twin in a pink dress was walking back towards the lodge with a blanket draped over her arm.

Which meant that the girl sleeping among the tall grasses was Harper.

He stared down at her for a moment and then decided that peaceful look of sleep in her face was actually unsettling, even if was rather pleasant, aesthetically speaking. After another moment of contemplation, he dragged down a few boughs off of the trees and draped them over her. The temperature would drop with the setting of the sun, but the branches would keep her body heat in well enough for a few hours more.

Harper awoke to a black world. The ground was black, the trees dark outlines against a blue-black sky. Her skin was oddly itchy and when she sat up to see why, bunch of branches tumbled off of her. She stood, rubbing her eyes. Who had put these on her?

She shook her head. The only person who would do that kind of thing was Piper, and without any suspicions to latch onto, Harper had the kind of mind easily satisfied with simple answers. So she brushed the needles off her clothes and walked back to Jacobstown.

Mojave Wasteland

"Piper, this isn't the way to Old Lady Gibson's house," Harper sighed, following her sister up the steep incline. Piper was panting and sweating harder than she was, but she continued doggedly up the hill.

Between the two sisters, Boone suddenly bent over, inhaling air sharply through his mouth. As she passed him, Harper grabbed him by the arm and began dragging his ass up the slope behind her. She missed first his surprise at being hauled up by a woman who stood as tall as his shoulder and then his long-suffering resignation as he tried to catch his breath.

"There was screaming, Harper – I heard it!" Piper insisted, panting and staggering up the incline. "You were trying to grab the armor off of that raider back there!"

She finally, finally made it to the top and what she saw in the valley below made her freeze where she stood, her breath held up in her throat.

Harper squinted in the light of the sun as she kept struggling up the hill and her foot slid on the sandy earth, causing her to fall backwards. She felt a large hand suddenly press into her lower back and shove, forcing her momentum upwards again. Harper scowled at the ground because even she wasn't enough of a bitch to snap at him right now.

The other two people met Piper at her resting place and Harper frowned. "Are those people on crosses? What the hell is this place?"

Boone growled behind her. "This…this is Nelson. It's a Legion town. And if I get close enough to see a Legionnaire, I'm shooting."

The spark of violence flowed up Harper's back and into her arms and legs. She grinned viciously. "Is that supposed to be a problem, soldier boy?" She slid the spiked knuckles over her scarred hands. "Let's go!"

"Wait!" Piper grabbed for her arm.

Boone was privately amazed when he saw Harper pause. "Yeah?"

"Kill all of the Legionnaires," Piper commanded quietly. "But leave the NCR troopers alive and keep the Legion away so that I can get them down."

Harper saluted her twin. "Got it, Commander Piper. Cover me, soldier boy!"

She heard him yelling at her back – probably wanted her to stay there like Piper and let him protect her like a good little woman. She snorted as she imagined her father's face if she ever told him that. Ducking low as she scrambled over the rocks towards the town, Harper contemplated going full-on assault or trying a few sneak attacks first before they noticed she was in Nelson. She glanced at the three crucified NCR soldiers. Piper wanted them down…and no doubt soldier boy was itching for the same outcome. They would need a pretty big distraction if she intended to free all three of them before the Legion could sabotage Piper's efforts…or attack her. She smirked slightly at herself. Go big or go home.

She winded her path away from the town as she circled it, trying to seem as though she had approached from the river rather than from the hills. There were a few grenades in her pocket that would serve her purpose for this perfectly.

Boone and Piper watched Harper disappeared from the south and twenty minutes later, shouts were heard from the distance eastern part of town. Explosions rattled the air in that direction. Several Legionnaires from other lookout points in the town ran to see what the commotion was. Piper held his wrist to keep him from firing at them. "Those sound like grenades," he muttered to his blond companion. "What the hell is she doing?"

The girl grabbed his sleeve and led him into town at a crouch. "That's our distraction – now I'm going to untie the soldiers and let them down and you're going to watch the houses in case there are Legionnaires inside the buildings. If we're lucky, Harper will have already destroyed at least half of their forces at that watch point. The others will have gone to look, like the ones we saw. It shouldn't take her very long to take care of them."

"She can't kill a whole town of Legionnaires by herself," he said lowly, readying his rifle.

"She can because she has to," Piper said, with a simple and somewhat childish attitude. Not for the first time, Boone wondered what the twins were like as kids. "You have to be here to make sure I don't get shot in the head a third time."

He exhaled softly and turned to scan the windows of the houses. He hissed as he saw the shapes of dark outlines through the glass and readied his rifle. "We're gonna have some unpleasant company in about thirty seconds."

Piper's hands were buried in the ropes tying up the first trooper's legs. "I trust you, Craig."

A tremble went through his spirit and if it weren't the threat of imminent danger ahead of them, he would've warned her never to say that again. As it was, Boone's jaw tightened until his head ached and behind his sunglasses, his eyes stared fixedly at the house doors. His stomach hurt. Fuck, his luck was going to catch up with him. A stray bullet would hit Piper and he would still be alive…No. No, his fear could kill her faster than his luck could. He couldn't let himself freeze every time Piper needed him.

He let his body take over from his brain and as soon as he saw Legion crimson, his finger pulled the trigger of the hunting rifle and felt a sense of deep satisfaction as the Legionnaire's head exploded all over the wall behind him. Rapid-fire took care of the other three who came up from the doorway behind him. A glance to the side told him that Piper was now freeing the arms of the second soldier. The first was nowhere to be seen. Gunfire sounded off in the east, where Harper was running amok. Well, at least they hadn't managed to kill her yet. "Almost done there, Piper?"

"Almost," Piper panted. For the third soldier, she had simply resorted to sawing at the ropes with a dull kitchen knife she apparently kept on her person. The trooper half-collapsed to the ground, gasping his thanks before going into an unsteady run, and Piper dropped back down beside him. "There. We should go see how Harper-"

A high scream ripped through the air, cutting her off. "Go back to the cliffs," Boone hissed, crouching toward the northeastern watchtower. "If it's safe, I'll come back and get you. If I don't come back in twenty minutes, run back to Novac and don't come back for us."

She was white with fear but didn't argue with him. Boone peered down the slope and sighed. Piper wasn't even out of the town yet. "Come back, Piper. It's safe."

Boone was halfway down the slope as she killed the last Legionnaire and he screamed just like the last one had. Harper looked up at him with an evil smile the lower half of her pale hair was soaked in blood. "Sad I had all the fun without you, soldier boy?"

He couldn't call this a battle. It had been a slaughter. The men Harper hadn't blown up with her frag grenades were butchered to pieces with their own machetes. Piper was right; Harper was no longer wearing the Mojave – the Mojave was wearing her. "You massacred them."

She shrugged, still smiling. "All in a day's work."

Piper was not listening to their conversation. The north side of town sloped down into a valley that was surrounded by the rocky hills on three sides. There was a settlement directly on the other side of the rocky hill across from Nelson. She stared down into the valley. "There are men down there," Piper said softly, staring with sad concentration. "They don't look like Legion. I think we should help them."

Harper groaned. "Helping more people? You're gonna give me a helluva reputation."

They silently trekked down the slopes with Harper on point, Piper following slowly behind her and Boone bringing up the rear. They had nearly reached the lower plain when Harper suddenly stopped, her chin tilting heavenward. Her lips pursed and he wondered if this was what it was like to see gundog on the hunt. "Piper, stay here." And just like a gundog, Harper burst out onto the plain. "I'll come back."

Piper took a small step toward her sister, reaching out for her. "Wait, Harper! Don't run ahead!"

Boone came forward to restrain her. While he had some doubts about Harper's sanity, she had so far proven herself to be very concerned with Piper's safety. As he moved closer, Boone suddenly stiffened. Because now he could smell it, too. The stench of death and pain was now unmistakable to him, as familiar as it had become.

An explosion very like the ones they'd heard in Nelson rippled its way across the valley. Piper suddenly gripped his arm. "Craig, that was a landmine," she said with urgent certainty. "We have to go after her."

He furrowed his brows. The logic behind that statement puzzled him slightly. "Why? Harper would be in less danger if we aren't setting off undetonated mines around her."

"She could already be injured." She was getting visibly distressed now. "The beeping of the landmines make Harper freeze. But when I'm with her, I'm always fast enough to disarm them before they go off."

They took off over the plains – another landmine went off and this time, a shouted curse followed it. With a cry, Piper sped up ahead of him, following her sister's footprints through the dry dirt. "Harper! Don't move, Harper, I'm coming!"

Hissing furiously in pain, Harper sat on a distant rock. Her left arm, side, and leg had pinpricks of shrapnel studding her worn armor and any exposed skin on that side. Streaks of blood ran from the bits of embedded debris. She was spattered with blood and body parts had been showered all around her. Someone else had been in this field when the landmine blew up. "Shit," Harper gasped rocking back and forth on her perch. "Shit, I think I need a stimpak."

The Tops

Benjamin Campbell had an icepack resting over his eyes as he reclined on the couch in his suite. The radio garbled on in the background, the music occasionally breaking for news segments – mostly gossip or details of the upcoming conflict between the Legion and the NCR. He had a nicely formed sunburn and a splitting headache and he still hadn't found the mysteriously living courier or that godsdamned Platinum Chip today. What he had gotten was a lot of conflicting stories.

Some people swore that a girl matching his girl's description had gone into the Lucky 38 yesterday afternoon. Other people swore that a girl of that same description was staying in the Atomic Wrangler and had never been to the Strip at all. Some insisted that there was a man with her, some a dog, and more still said that she was all alone. She was wearing her pink dress / leather armor / nothing at all. She carried a pistol / sledgehammer / switchblade / nothing but her fists. She was sweet / savage / sexy / scary.

If there wasn't so much evidence toward the contrary, Benny might still believe he was chasing a ghost after all. Except that he'd gone to the Atomic Wrangler and spoken to Francine – who said a woman of that description had indeed spent two nights there. Except that on the night the courier would have been with him, both James AND Francine Garrett, as well as several of their staff, firmly insisted that she had been playing poker and drinking vodka at one of the tables the entire night. She only went missing once about midnight for no longer than half an hour and Ralph had already confirmed to him that was because she was buying several cartons of cigarettes from him around that same time.

He was musing on where he should start next when the radio burst through the fog of his thoughts.

"Next in the news – a package courier found shot in the head near Goodsprings has reportedly regained consciousness and made a full recovery about a week ago." Benny jerked upright off the sofa, throwing the icepack to the floor, his heart beating wildly. "Miss Piper Vermillion, 19, of New Vegas, was shot twice in the head and dumped in a shallow grave about three weeks ago. Though he originally thought that her chances were slim, Doc Mitchell, the town doctor is extremely proud to say the patient survived with no lasting damages. Miss Vermillion was released from his care just one week ago. In other news…"

Benny found himself waging an internal war. She stole the Chip. She's ruined everything you've worked two and a half years for. Sadly this wasn't enough to quiet the other voices inside his head.

Voices telling him that when he brought his courier up here, she had tried to speak to him, tried to talk to him. That she was sweet and sexy, but not savage. Scared, maybe, but not scary. And young. So, so young. Only nineteen years old, in fact. With jerky movements, Benny ran back into the bedroom to tear off his sheets. He was beginning to feel ill, truly sick and now he didn't know how to deal with this situation. She'd probably tried to talk him out of it, tried to get away from him, or maybe at least make him get her permission. Oh god oh god oh fucking god. _I shot a teenage girl in the head and then dragged her away and robbed her of her virginity._

Benny's hand twitched for the whiskey bottle. The godsdamned sheets smelled just like her, too. Whispered longings to him.

It occurred to him then that his mind was probably just as obsessed with her as it was before she'd walked into his casino.

Camp Forlorn Hope

The shrapnel had to be taken out of the left half of Harper's body with a pair of tweezers and one would have thought by the way they acted that they were actually being taken from Piper's. Piper clutched her twin's right hand with both of her own, grimacing and whimpering as each piece of debris was plucked out from the flesh. Harper herself seemed hardly aware that a doctor was picking metal out of her skin. She sat at the edge of a bed, mostly still and silent. When a particularly embedded piece in her shoulder had to be dug out, she made a sound partly between a growl and a groan, half-lunging off the table and nearly sending her sister to the floor. The doctor held her back down as Boone was already occupied with making sure Piper didn't brain herself on the opposite table.

By the time they were finished, Piper was sweating bullets while Harper curiously examined the functions of her Pip-Boy. "This thing actually looks pretty cool," she had, turning over her wrist as the doctor began bandaging her leg. "I can't wait to try whatever VATS is."

Boone glanced over at Piper, who looked like she was ready to faint. "Ready to go?" he asked, knowing that Harper would not make the decision for her.

She shook her head as though to clear it of something, seemingly in a daze. "No. I mean, yes, yes of course we should get out of the way." She turned to Doctor Richards, twisting that silly lace handkerchief between her hands. "Is there anything we can do to help you? Other than the payment, of course?"

Doctor Richards eyed the three of them, Harper and Boone done up in armor, and Piper in her pink dress and sunbonnet. "You might wanna talk to Major Polatli about that kind of thing. I'm sure he'll have something for you to do. You may not have noticed this in your rush to get your sister up here, but this camp is in kind of bad shape. He would be grateful for any help you could offer."

Jacobstown

"Harper, I really don't want to see Rex having his brain taken out," Piper whispered, looking distinctly queasy. "Do you mind if I...?"

"Yeah, sure. Henry mentioned something about nightkin research if you want something to do," Harper said shrugging.

"Going to find nightstalkers? By myself?" Her face went taunt and pale with fear.

"Not by yourself, dummy. Henry said the nightkin out in the yard – uh, Lily – would be willing to take you. Or you could take soldier boy," she added, pointing her thumb at the sniper she knew would be standing directly behind her. Harper felt as though she had been given a second shadow with the man around.

"No, Craig can stay here," Piper said in a rush, whirling around so fast her pink dress swirled. "I'll be right back!"

Outside the lodge, she wasn't quite so sure. She was admittedly nervous about interacting with a nightkin – even a friendly one, though she'd never known that particular incarnation existed. "U-uh, um...Miss Lily? Are you Lily?"

"Why, hello, Janie. It's been a long time since you came to visit your old grandma. It's so nice to see you, dearie. And look how tall you've gotten! You've grown up into such a lovely young woman. It's a shame I couldn't make it your graduation."

"Um...okay," she mumbled, confused. "I mean, that's okay...uh, Grandma." To herself, she added "I have no idea what a graduation is anyway. Uh, Grandma, can you help me look for nightstalkers in Charleston Cave? Doctor Henry says they've been eating your bighorners...?"

"Of course, dearie." She'd never seen a nightkin beam, but Lily...er, Grandma was doing a rough approximation of it. "I'd be glad to help you hunt those mean, nasty brutes!"

Piper smiled back uncertainly. This was strangely nice. In a weird, maybe-I-drank-some-of-Harper's-good-whiskey kind of way. But hey, you only live once, right? "Let's go, Grandma!"

Working with Grandma was fun – except that they were in a dark cave, the nightstalkers were invisible, and the nightkin tended to race out in front of her line of sight. It was a little troublesome, because she couldn't really risk firing the pistol with Grandma Lily right in front of her and because she couldn't see the nightstalkers until they were ready to attack her, which meant that she had to aim at the ground and shoot continuously in the hope that she would actually hit something. Other than a couple of claw marks and some scratches from being knocked down by a nightstalker Grandma wasn't quick enough to put down, Piper had managed to complete her task without being seriously injured.

"Here, dearie, let me help you." Grandma grabbed her with a hand the size of a trashcan lid and hauled her up by the arm, nearly dislocating her shoulder as she lifted her. Piper stumbled to regain her footing, tripping over a nightstalker's corpse and nearly making herself fall again. Grandma put a careful hand in front of her to keep her from talking another spill across the cave floor, causing Piper's side to collide with a hand roughly the same density as a boulder. "There, that's better, isn't it dear?"

"Much better, thank you, Grandma!" Piper said with a smile. She was quickly becoming attached to this, even if it was part of the nightkin's schizophrenic delusion.

She returned two hours later, her dress dirty and disheveled and her hair a tangled disaster once again. But Piper was grinning broadly, a chewed-up stealthboy cradled precariously in one shaky arm while the other held her pistol, with the safety turned on. She wobbled back down the road to the lodge in her tiny shoes, half of her skirt crumpled and dirty from the spill she'd taken in the cave. Even in the midst of victory, Piper still had a way of looking like a small child who had suddenly decided to play dress-up with the adults. "I got everything Doctor Henry needs to help the nightkin now," she told Boone with breathless happiness. "I think the stealthboy these nightstalkers have been chewing on from a dead super mutant has given them the abilities of the nightkin. Craig, this is, ah...this is Grandma. Grandma, say hi to Craig."

Lily leaned over, peering down at Boone as though near-sighted. "You have such a nice young man here, Janie – and so handsome, too!"

"Uh...Grandma, Craig's not-not uh...oh..."

"Doctor Henry is still in the office operating on Rex," Boone replied tonelessly. Glancing at the upper floor, he lowered his voice and said "Does this happen often?"

Harper was on the upper landing, pacing the circuit of the hallway. Mutants eyed her, some nervously, and some with near-predatory interest. While Boone didn't think this seemed normal for her, Piper merely glanced at her with a pinched face and seated herself on one of the lobby benches to wait for the operation to be over. "She doesn't like to stay indoors for very long unless she had something to occupy herself. Either she's gotten really attached to Rex," Piper whispered, joking a little. "Or she's been taking Psycho when I'm not looking."

"Your sister is a chem addict?" he hissed, eyes narrowed behind his shades. "Even you can't be naïve enough to think that people with that kind of problem don't ever just 'get better' Piper. You can't trust a junkie – _they _can't even trust themselves."

"She's not an addict," Piper said, sounding defensive now. "My family is known for doing a lot of...experimenting...with chems – among other things. But when we left home, she made a promise to me that she'd stop taking any of them unless they were given to her at the recommendation of someone with actual medical experience or if either of us were in serious, life-threatening danger. My sister doesn't break her promises to me, Craig."

Boone glanced up at Harper and then back at Piper, who was stroking the lace of her handkerchief. Somewhere she'd lost her gloves and her hands looked small and slightly calloused. "For your sake I hope that's true."


End file.
